Swiss chipmaker STMicroelectronics says in a warn letter that a three-year plan to phase out positions as the company moves towards the closing of its Carrollton plant is going forward with a staffing reduction that will impact 36 workers in the near future.

SanDisk is disclosing at a San Francisco technology conference Tuesday that it will begin mass production of memory chips that will allow consumers to store up to 64GB of data on tiny flash cards. The company's X4 technology will pack four bits of data into each memory cell. To date, flash memory chipmakers typically stored one bit or two bits per cell.

Struggling German chip maker Infineon is considering a partnership in Europe or Asia even though it can survive alone, its chairman told a newspaper, but analysts said chances for an alliance were slim.

German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG reported Friday a ？404 million ($513 million) net loss for its fiscal first quarter as the global economic slowdown crimped demand and caused sales to fall.

Unlike past US recessions, chipmakers can't count on boosting overseas sales this time because the economic slowdown has so quickly gone global. Slowing exports is a challenge for the chipmakers, which do most sales overseas. Three of the largest US chipmakers are taking different tacks to cut manufacturing costs in the face of a steep global recession.

Qimonda will shut its only U.S. plant with the loss of around 1,500 jobs, the insolvent German memory chip maker said on Tuesday, adding it faced liquidation if it cannot find investors with deep pockets.

European Union Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen sees no chance to save Germany's insolvent chip maker Qimonda with the tools available to the EU, he said in a newspaper interview on Tuesday. 'Nobody can save a company whose owner does not want to save it.'

Qimonda has four weeks to find an investor to save the core of its insolvent memory chip business before having to close production and dismiss 12,000 workers, say people close to the company. Rival chipmakers have shown the "first signs of interest" in Qimonda, since it filed for insolvency last week.

Battered Asian memory chip makers will get some respite from oversupply in the long term after German chipmaker Qimonda filed for insolvency but the industry's recovery depends on a pick-up in demand.

Samsung Electronics announced that it has developed the first 4Gbit DDR3 DRAM chip using a 50nm lithography process. The new chip doubles the density of earlier DRAM chips, yielding modules with up to 32GB capacity.

Many chip makers and analysts had predicted, as recently as earlier this month, that improvements in the semiconductor market could begin in the second half of 2009 as the chip inventories throughout the tech supply chain bottom and tech companies look to restock shelves with new products. But recent signs suggest a turnaround remains distant, and investors who have been piling into chip stocks could now be regretting their early advances.

The technology industry suffered another black day yesterday (January 30) as a host of big names including NEC and Hitachi, said they would make large losses in the year to March. Toshiba and NEC Electronics warned they would incur losses in the year to March. Even star performer Nintendo cut its profit forecast.

Toshiba is in talks to merge part of its chip operations with the semiconductor unit of NEC, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said, as they struggle with slumping demand and prices.

Freescale Semiconductor reacted to weakening business conditions Tuesday with a series of austerity moves to cut spending. The Austin-based chipmaker said it will temporarily freeze all salaries and promotions, require executives to take pay cuts and force all workers to take five unpaid days off in the first quarter.

Shares of chip makers and companies serving the sector suffered during the year. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Sector index, which is comprised of chip companies as well as manufacturers of chip-making equipment, fell by nearly half in 2008. The index closed Tuesday's trading session at 211.26, compared with 408.04 at the end of 2007.

Samsung Electronics plans to slash its investment in semiconductor chips by more than 50% this year. The world's biggest computer chip maker is considering reducing its investment in semiconductor chips to two-three trillion won, sources told The Korea Times. Samsung invested 6.2 trillion won in chips in 2008, down from its earlier plan of seven trillion won.

Debt-laden Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductor will not go bankrupt, though some of its peers may fall by the wayside, its chief executive told a Dutch newspaper as the sector endures a crippling downturn. "This will keep us going for a very long time. NXP will not go bankrupt," he was quoted on Monday as saying.

Programable chip maker Xilinx lowered its fiscal third-quarter guidance Tuesday, saying sales in December have been weaker than anticipated. Xilinx shares dipped 13 cents to $18 after hours Tuesday, after closing up 5 percent for the day.

Fairchild Semiconductor said Friday it is cutting 12% of its workforce, or 1,100 people, in an attempt to reduce expenses.

Infineon Technologies has indicated it could contribute 50 million euros ($66 million) to help rescue its loss-making chipmaker Qimonda, German magazine Focus said, citing sources close to negotiations.

European semiconductor industry executives are launching a concerted push to convince European government leaders to increase support for chip manufacturing and the equipment and materials infrastructure.

Chip makers are shutting down less-productive factories, delaying investment projects and even cutting staff in a sign that the global economic slowdown and the credit crunch are taking a hefty toll on demand and hurting their operations. The coming few months could be critical for several memory-chip makers in Asia, Europe and the US as they continue to grapple with weak demand and a severe cash crunch amid plunging chip prices, which remain well below their manufacturing costs.

Japanese electronics conglomerate Toshiba is considering delaying construction of two new domestic chip plants amid slowing demand and falling prices, Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday.

"In view of the current global financial turmoil we are drawing $400 million under our revolving credit facility. This is a proactive financial decision in order to secure availability of this facility in a turbulent financial market environment," said Karl-Henrik Sundstrom, NXP's chief financial officer, in a statement.

In a report titled "Death by 1000 paper cuts: Cutting estimates and targets on most chip firms," FBR Capital Markets downgraded its estimates for several semiconductor industry companies including AMD, Maxim, and National Semiconductor.